1. Field of the Invention
The invention generally relates to a remote control apparatus for remotely controlling a toilet seat apparatus that sprays water toward the private parts of a human body.
2. Description of Related Art
There is a widely-used toilet seat apparatus in existence which sprays water toward private parts of a user seated on a toilet seat in order to cleanse such private parts. The user presses buttons or the like provided on the toilet seat apparatus to select the operations of the toilet seat apparatus, such as starting water spray from a nozzle after relieving himself/herself, stopping the water spray after cleansing and so on. Another practical and common configuration is such that a remote controller provided with such buttons is installed on a wall surface of a bathroom compartment in order to arrange these buttons in a place where the user can easily operate them, so that the toilet seat apparatus is remotely and wirelessly controlled.
When an operation of the toilet seat apparatus is selected using a remote controller, the electric power required for generating a signal according to the selected content and transmitting the signal to the toilet seat apparatus is typically supplied from a battery in the remote controller or by a commercial power source supplied via wires. However, when the electric power is supplied by a battery or via wires, burdensome work is required in order to replace the batteries and install wires.
Patent Document 1 (JP2006-009280 A) proposes a remote controller for a toilet seat apparatus which eliminates the need for such battery replacement and wire installation. In the remote controller described in Patent Document 1, when a user presses a button on the remote controller, the pressing operation generates electric power and the resulting electric power is used to generate and transmit a signal. More specifically, mechanisms such as a switch and an engagement piece provided in the remote controller are actuated by the user's pressing operation, an impact is made on a piezoceramic body and the resulting electric power is used for generation of a signal, etc.
The remote controller described in Patent Document 1 has a problem with its degraded operability. Specifically, since the electric power is generated using mechanical energy input by the pressing operation of a button, a larger force is needed to press the button and the button needs to be pressed more deeply, as compared to the related-art remote controllers which use batteries, etc.
A possible method for alleviating such degradation of operability would be to reduce the electric power generated by the pressing operation of the button. Since there is a proportional correlation between the mechanical energy input by the pressing operation of a button and the amount of electric power generated in a mechanism in the remote controller, the reduction in the electric power to be generated can also reduce the force needed to press the button and the depth of pressing that the button needs to be pressed.
However, if the electric power to be generated by the pressing operation of the button is reduced, the accuracy of transmission of a signal from the remote controller to the toilet seat apparatus will be lowered, which might cause the operation selected by the user via the remote controller to be unable to be performed by the toilet seat apparatus. In particular, when the user is about to finish cleansing his/her private parts on the toilet seat apparatus, he/she cannot leave the toilet seat unless the water spray from the nozzle has stopped and it is thus necessary to stop the water spray rapidly and reliably. Accordingly, it is not desirable to reduce the accuracy of transmission of a water stop signal for stopping the water spray from the nozzle.
The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and an object of the present invention is to provide a remote control apparatus for a toilet seat apparatus which generates electric power by means of a user's pressing operation, the remote control apparatus being capable of balancing operability and the ability to reliably stop water spray at a high level.